WASHINGTON D.C. – Prof. Joseph Turow from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication addressed members of the United States Senate on July 27 regarding measures that would ensure the privacy of consumers, a sharp countermeasure to marketers who have sophisticated means of looking into private lives.

“We must move from the current marketing regime that uses information with abandon – where people’s data are being sliced and diced to create reputations for them that they don’t know about and might not agree with – to a regime that acts toward information with respect,” said Turow, the Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication at Annenberg.

Turow was one of a number of individuals testifying about technology-enhanced privacy of consumer data. Representatives from Google, Facebook, AT&T and the Cato Institute were also scheduled to appear before the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation. 

The hearing surfaced amid greater momentum in Congress to create framework legislation on how websites should handle user information. Bills have been introduced that would force websites to ask for explicit permission to gather sensitive information.

NOTE: Prof. Turow will be available via telephone for news-media interviews.  Contact Joseph Diorio at Penn to make arrangements (jdiorio@asc.upenn.edu or 215-746-1798).